


That He Should Weep for Her

by onArete



Series: Competent Women [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Hecuba's backstory, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 09:22:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16951338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onArete/pseuds/onArete
Summary: Hecuba is a precocious child. Everyone on the beach agrees, so it must be true. She doesn't read until seven, but she's swimming before she can walk and spending full minutes underwater.She's got a gift .She's going to do great things, someday.---How did Hecuba Roughridge find herself in an arranged marriage to Merle?  What happened to this largely-forgotten character to bring her to Goldcliff on the day of Story and Song?It's a Hecuba backstory, kids!





	That He Should Weep for Her

**Author's Note:**

> Holy shit y'all, holy shit. This took so much longer than I expected it to, but... here it is!

 

_i._

Hecuba is a precocious child. Everyone on the beach agrees, so it must be true. She doesn't read until seven, but she's swimming before she can walk and spending full minutes underwater.

She's got a _gift_.

She's going to do great things, someday.

\---

Her first memory is, naturally, of the sea. She's little enough that the water rises to her waist, though it barely touches her fathers knees. He's standing next to her, holding her hand so the roar of the waves doesn't sweep her off her feet.

They are watching the moon rise, white and alone in the fading blue sky. The water is cooling down, but it doesn't deter her.

Hecuba looks up at her dad’s face - he's smiling out at the horizon - and waits until something catches his attention.  He looks down, further into the ocean, and jumps backward in shock.

Half a second later, he realizes his mistake, and lunges for Hecy - but it’s too late.  The tiny child has already been pulled away by the sea.

“Swim!” he shouts to her.  “Swim!”

But Hecuba, born on the beach and half-raised in the ocean, doesn’t listen.  She frolics happily, floating on her back and then her stomach, diving up and down to her heart’s content.  She doesn’t notice that her father has swum after her until he’s there, pulling her out of the water and onto the sand and up up up the beach into their house.

“Hecy,” he says, breath labored, as he presses a clean towel to his shoulder that’s red with blood - a bite of something, some ocean-faring thing.  “You don’t always have to stay still, you know.”

Hecuba - Hecy - is a toddler, and she nods solemnly, pats his hand, and runs off to her tower of blocks.

\---

Hecy’s parents keep a closer eye on her after that. Always an independent child, she's highly annoyed to find a driftwood fence built in their backyard. If she goes up on her tiptoes, and arches her neck as much as she can, she can see the ocean.

It makes her a little stir crazy. There's not much to do in the house, after all. Hecuba can't read yet, doesn't like cooking or sewing or weaving nets. She likes being out there, under the water. All the way at the bottom, where everything is dark and still.

\---

“Come on, Hecy,” her mother pleads. “You'll like reading. It's _fun_!”

“Nuh-uh,” she insists, crossing her arms over her wisp of a beard and shaking her head adamantly. “I want to _swim_.”

Her mother sighs, tilts her head back. “ _Please_ \- darling, the other kids your age already know how to do this. That's why they get to go to school.”

“I don't want to go to school,” Hecuba spits. She's six and she's _angry_ . “I'm not _good_ at that stuff anyway!”

“How about this,” her mother offers, when a tantrum seems eminent. “You learn to read. And every day you practice, your father or I will take you out to the ocean.”

“For how long?” she asks sharply.

A tired smile flashes across her mother’s face. “Half an hour of reading, an hour swimming.”

Hecy sticks out her bottom lip. But it's better than only swimming on weekends, when her dad’s home from whatever his job is anyway.

“Fine,” she decides, uncrossing her arms. “Gimme a book.”

\---

Hecuba doesn’t remember the funeral, but she remembers how her dad promised to take her swimming, before he left to the doctors and didn’t come back.

\---

Letters don't make much sense to Hecuba. They dart and swirl around the page, jumping off of their lines and mingling among themselves. They look like surface waves, huge and crashing.

She wants them still and dark, all the way down at the ocean floor.

“For the love of Pan,” her mother says, as she sits sobbing over a word that she _knows_ but the letters are all _wrong_. “I don't even know why I try.”

The chair screeches louder than the waves outside as it tips backward, and her mother walks away from Hecy at the kitchen table.

She walks right out the door, and Hecuba keeps crying.

After a long time, she sits herself up. The word still doesn't make any sense. She doesn't think she's gonna get to go swimming today.

Hecy dries her eyes, picks up her pile of papers that don't make sense. She picks up her moms tipped-over chair. Sets the table for dinner.

And then she sits, and watches the clock.

Numbers, at least, make sense to Hecuba. And she knows that it's been a long time since her mom walked out the front door, leaving it banging shut behind her.

It's worrisome.

Hecy stands up. On the counter, she finds a note in perfect handwriting. It's her moms, and Hecuba can't read it. It falls to the sandy floor as she starts crying again.

Outside, the ocean roars.

\---

That night, she falls asleep on her mom’s empty bed.

\---

She wakes up in her own bed like nothing’s changed, and when she climbs out, her mother is snoring in her bed.  The note that she couldn’t read is gone. There’s a pot of oatmeal warming on the stove.

Hecy’s confused, and she doesn’t eat the oatmeal.  Instead, she gets dressed, and braids her beard neatly.  She’s going to be the best daughter she can be, because if she is, then maybe her mom won’t leave again.

And Hecy will do anything to stop her from leaving - even if it means learning how to read.

\---

She tries.  Really, she tries, as hard as she can, every day.  She doesn’t pester her mother to take her to the beach, even when she’s been reading for an hour.  Hecy fights her way through tangles of letters while her mom combs through bills at the table. Sometimes, they both cry.  Unlike her mom’s harsh sobs, Hecy keeps hers quiet. If she’s good, then her mom won’t leave.

One day, her mom wakes up in a good mood.  She makes pancakes on the stove, and lets Hecy mix the batter and hold the spatula for her when she’s not using it.  They pull out the old jar of elderberry syrup, too, drizzle it on. It’s a good morning.

Hecuba knows this because her mom tells her so.  

“I’m going to a new job,” she says, spearing a bite of pancake, and watching her daughter intently.  “I got hired onto a fishing ship.”

Hecy smiles.  “That’s great, Mama.”

Mama smiles, too.  “You’re going to go to school.”

She drops her fork, and her mom frowns, says, “ _Really_ , now-”

But Hecy isn’t paying her any attention.  She can’t read, not yet, not well enough to go to school like all the other kids her age did two years ago.

She can’t read, can’t _do_ it-

“You’ll be fine,” her mother says, and stabs another bite of pancake in a way that almost seems angry.

Hecuba forces her breaths to calm, and eats a piece of pancake.  There’s not enough syrup on it, but she doesn’t ask her mom to pass it to her.  “Cool,” she says, and smiles.

“That's my girl.”

They finish their breakfast in silence, and lock the front door behind them. The elderly neighbors, Ann and Roderick, wave at Hecy as she and her mom march down the road. Hecy waves back. Her mom does not.

“Can't be late,” she says instead, and walks faster, pulling her daughter along with her.

\---

All too soon they're in front of the school. It's a long, sprawling thing, with a big yard all fenced in with driftwood. It's that familiar driftwood fence that lets Hecuba let go of her mom’s hand and walk up to the front doors. As she pulls one open to slip inside, she turns around. Her mother is already walking away.

Hecy lets the door slam behind her, and walks up to the room with glass walls that her mom said was the office. She storms right in, angry about everything and nothing all at once.

“Hi,” she says to the man behind the desk. “I'm Hecuba Roughridge and I'm here for school.”

She grits her teeth as he directs her to the first grade class with the little kids. Hecuba balls her fists and clenches her jaw and follows him, sits nicely at her new desk.

She's not going to run. She's going to be good, and then her mom won't leave again.

The little dwarf girl whose desk is next to hers - half a head shorter than Hecuba, with dark skin and a fancily braided beard - smiles at Hecy. She doesn't smile back.

\---

The teacher is boring and Hecy fakes her way through reading and math and history. She’s halfway to tears when it's announced that its their turn for training.

Training?

She joins the line of kids, right behind the girl-who-sits-next-to-her. The girl is practically shaking.

“Stop it,” Hecy demands.

She turns, eyes wide and almost frightened.  “Um... me?”

“Yes,” she replies.  “Stop _shaking_.  Its, I dunno... rude.”

Her dark eyebrows knit together.  “I wanna shake. I’m excited.”

“About what?”

“Duh,” she replies.  “Training. We’re doing hand axes today, but tomorrow we’re swimming.”

It’s her turn to almost shake with excitement.  “We get to _swim_!”

“Shh,” says the teacher, but Hecy doesn’t care.

“We get to swim,” she says, triumphant but quieter to the short girl in line in front of her.  “In the ocean?”

“Yup.”  She looks up at Hecuba, eyes her over.  “I’m Ava. Do you wanna be my friend?”

Hecy eyes Ava right back.  “Alright.”

The ghost of a smile crosses her face, and she turns back around to face the front of the line.  She keeps her eyes on the back of Ava’s head as the teacher leads their line out of the school building and onto the sandy yard.  The ocean’s almost close enough to touch, and Hecuba can taste salt in the air.

She’s dying to get into it, but she doesn’t run.  She follows Ava and her classmates to a long table that’s topped with a few dozen wooden hand axes.

The handle fits into Hecuba’s young hands with surprising ease.  She misses the target the first two times, but after that her hurled wooden axe thuds into the target with a clunk that startles Hecy so badly she drops her next axe.

It’s with a fierce grin that she picks it up out of the white sand.  Hecy doesn’t miss the target again. The teacher compliments her, asks how she did it, and she’s not entirely sure.  She just kept her eyes on the sea behind the targets, and everything flew straight.

\---

Her mom’s proud of her.  She says she is, at least, and Hecy has no choice but to believe it.  Her good mood is mostly gone, and she’s grumpily drinking a mug of something at the kitchen table when Hecy gets home.

“I hit the target with a hand axe,” Hecy says like a peace offering.  “The teacher said I’m really good.”

Her mom rolls her eyes a little.  “That’s great, Hecuba.”

“They said I could maybe move up a grade, just on training.”

“That’s _great_ , Hecuba.”

“They said-”

“You’re bothering me.”

Hecy ducks her head, and finishes her dinner, and goes to bed.  She’s six years old and doing everything she can to be good and stay so her mom will do the same.

\---

The next day Hecuba cries over the reading assignment.  The sun is shining hot over Clamshell Coast, and the rest of the class has gone to lunch, but she’s determined to get it right.  Her mom was mad yesterday but if she learns to read maybe she won’t be mad at her anymore.

“Hecuba,” her teacher says gently, walking over to where she sits sobbing at her desk.  “Hecuba, darling, are you okay?”

“It doesn’t make _sense_ ,” she gulps, looking up at them.

“What doesn’t?”

“The... the... the _letters_!”

Something in her teacher’s dark eyes softens, sun-worn skin around them wrinkling.  “Can you tell me why they don’t make sense?”

“They _move_ ,” Hecy tells them, and dances her fingers around like the letters do. “They jump around and don’t hold _still_.”

The teacher nods, once, and stands straight up.  “Hecuba, would your mom let you be tested by the school cleric?”

Hecy shrugs.  “I dunno. Not if it costs money.”

“It’s completely free.”

“Then yeah, I guess.”

Hecuba doesn’t go swimming that day, because the school cleric is busy diagnosing her with something called _dyslexia_.  He gives her pink-tinted glasses and a blue case to keep them in and tells her to take care of them.

When she puts them on, she can pick out the individual letters on his nameplate, and Hecy cries again.

\---

It’s two days later that Hecuba finally gets to swim.  She can barely stand to hold still in the line behind Ava, anxious as she is to dive right into the ocean and never come out again.  The teacher says they can’t go too deep, but Hecy’s never been one to know how deep is too deep.

She runs right into the water as soon as she can.  The sand under her bare feet turns to smooth pebbles turns to big jutting rocks that scratch her feet, but then it doesn’t matter because the floor drops out from beneath her and Hecuba is swimming, gliding.  She dives down and down and down. Her eyes are open the whole way.

The afternoon sunlight filters in, lone rays in the dark depths.  She floats alone. Occasionally, a fish drifts past. Far away in the distance, she can see the pearl farms.  Although she’s never dived at them, Hecy knows that the divers there go down down down, down as far as she is.  They get paid for it. They dive into the deep and pull out pearls.

She thinks about running away to join them.

She doesn’t think about it for long, because all too soon even her hardy dwarven lungs can’t hold enough air to keep her underwater.  (Perhaps she should learn Water Breathing, that could be useful-)

Hecy swims for the surface.  Her head breaks above the water and she is far into the ocean, further than any of her classmates, gasping for air.  She laughs, though, and turns to swim back to the beach.

\---

School... turns out to not be so bad, after all.  Hecuba reads with her rosy glasses and throws axes with devastating accuracy.  She moves up one, then three, swimming levels. Finally the school gives up, and just lets her swim as she pleases - there’s nothing more for them to teach her.

Well, that’s what most of the school thinks.

Hecy’s just turned eleven, and she’s got one, maybe two years left in school before she joins an apprenticeship.  She’s got her fingers crossed for the pearl farms.

The diving teacher, though, won’t leave her alone.  She’s a younger dwarf, only a few decades older than Hecy, with a patchy beard and bright blue eyes.  Her name’s Furniss, or something like that. Everybody kind of hates her, just as they know that she’s a great teacher.

“I think you could get a better approach,” Furniss says to Hecy after a long swim session.  “If you were out of the water when you started diving -”

Hecy gives her a look.  “They don’t do that at the pearl farms.”

Furniss nods, wringing out one of her beard braids.  “They do at professional swimming and diving competitions.”

“What in the _planar system_ does that have to do with me?” she retorts.

The coach shakes her head a little.  “Haven’t you ever thought you could do more than dive for pearls, Hecuba?”

Hecy squints up at her.  “No.”

And with that, she turns on her heel and races after Ava, white sand splashing up from her footsteps.

\---

Hecy tries hard - she really does - to not think about what Furniss had suggested.  But it grows inside her mind like a weed, like an afterthought that never quite goes away.

Hecuba Roughridge.  Competing at swimming and diving competitions.  Hecuba, getting out of Clamshell Coast. Hecuba, with a job that’s not diving for pearls.

When she thinks this, she shakes her head, glasses sliding a little down her nose.  Her mom’s in between jobs, and doesn’t have time to let Hecy do that. Besides, she wants to be a pearl farmer.  It means she gets to swim every day.

And isn’t that all Hecuba’s ever wanted?

She thinks about pearl farming and diving and getting out of Clamshell Coast while she and Ava and their friend Jeremy gather driftwood for their project.   If she’s asked, though, it’s Jeremy’s idea.

He’s the dreamer.  He was the one who pulled her and Ava aside after school one sunny day and said, “We should build a raft.  Go swim where it’s deep. Let Hecy show off her diving stuff.”

And of course it’s a silly idea, but... something within it tugs right at Hecuba’s core.

“I don’t know,” Ava says.

“Let’s do it,” Hecy decides.

They pile up long planks of driftwood, and strip seaweed from the ocean floor near the school.  None of them are very good at it, but Jeremy’s the best at weaving the plants with the boards and getting them to stay together when put into the ocean.  Soon enough, they’ve got a little raft, big enough they can all sit on it with their feet dangling into the water.

Hecy tells her mom that she’ll be home late the next day.

Her mom doesn’t answer, and Hecy half-finishes her math homework and goes to bed.

(She’s doing good, and her mom is staying.  It can’t hurt to let her try this. She’ll still stay.)

It’s an easy enough matter for three kids practically raised in the ocean to get their raft past the big swells, out onto the water where the waves roll gently.  When Jeremy tries to climb aboard, the whole thing tips on him, and he comes up sputtering and laughing.

They finally manage it by all getting on at once, leveraging their weight against the raft against the rocking water beneath them.

“Well, Hecy,” says Ava, leaning back against Jeremy while she ties up her hair.  “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Hecy knows that she’s talking about getting in the water first and timing how long she can stay under, or something like that.  But Hecy’s thinking about dives from above the water, fast dives, dives that could go deeper than ever before.

On shaking legs, she rises.

“Careful there,” Jeremy says with a bit of a laugh as she jostles his side.  “What’re you-”

He doesn’t finish the sentence.

Hecy raises her arms over her head, hand over hand, and jumps, and _dives_.

She goes down down down, to where the water streaming in is more of an afterthought and the world has gone grayscale with her darkvision.  A fish bigger than any she’s seen before glides past, inches from her face.

Hecy stares in awe.  It’s a whole new world, down there - until her lungs protest, and she’s booking it for the surface.

She breaks out into the air to find Ava and Jeremy in the water, too, diving down to look for her.  Hecuba’s panting for breath, but she knows something, now.

This is _exactly_ what she wants.

\---

“I thought about what you said,” she says to Furniss the next day, who nods like she’s been expecting this.  “I want to compete.”

“Well, you need to train first,” says the teacher, but Hecy isn’t half done.

“I can’t pay,” she tells her.  “And my mom can’t know.”

“Why not?” she asks, then corrects herself.  “Why can’t your mom know?”

Hecy shrugs.  “She just wants me to read and do good in school and stuff.  She doesn’t really care about this, and she doesn’t have time to go to competitions and stuff.”

Furniss’s bright blue eyes soften a little.  “I’ll figure it out.”

\---

Hecy trains with Furniss after school off of a rowboat.  They tie a rope to her waist, and measure how much gets wet every dive.  They watch the graph of her dives get deeper and deeper. She gets better at breathing through them, at not feeling like her lungs are going to burst.

She practices deep breathing exercises in her bed at night when her mom’s asleep and her thunderous snores echo across their tiny house.

The more she trains, the more it become obvious.  Hecuba Roughridge is twelve years old, and she is indeed a precocious child.  She’s going to do great things any one of these days.

 

_ii._

Her first competition is indoors.  It’s a college meet at Neverwinter, and she misses a day of school with Furniss to take a train to the city.  Everything there is bright and golden, and Hecuba wishes she’d brought her glasses with her so she could read the brilliant billboards that flash past their windows every few seconds.

The people, too, are different.  Clamshell Coast is mostly dwarves, with a few half-elves and some gnomes and the occasional human or half-orc.  Neverwinter, though, is anything but that. For every dwarf Hecuba sees, there’s a tiefling and an orc and a dragonborn and an elf and an aarakocra and a--

It’s scary.  She kind of likes it, but mostly it makes Hecuba feel small.

Neverwinter University is scary, too.  It’s all dark brick and shiny metal and glass.  It smells of power and prestige. Furniss stands as straight as she can, and ignores the curious glances of the students at the two barefoot beach dwarves.

Hecy keeps her head down.  She passes a purple dragonborn and a huge tiefling and wants to look up and gape at them - how often does she get to see a _dragonborn_! - but she doesn’t.

There’s a problem with the indoor diving.  They’re supposed to dive off of blocks, and go down as deep as they can.  The other competitors are wearing fancy swimsuits and caps and goggles. Hecy’s got her hair and beard braided out of her way and is wearing a wetsuit.  The others are looking at her weird.

The blocks are higher up than the rowboat she usually dives off of, and although Hecy knows she’s not that much further up, it seems like she’s leaping off of a rooftop.  It seems like she’s diving down from the stars.

“You can do this,” Furniss says, and pats her on the back in a way that’s probably supposed to be comforting.

Hecy worries one of her beard braids between her fingers, and nervously climbs up onto her block.  It’s rough beneath her bare feet, but not rough like rocks and pebbles are. It feels... fake.

She’s thinking about what it could be made of and why anybody would even _need_ an indoor diving stadium when the buzzer goes off.  It startles Hecy, and she’s the last one off the block - but this isn’t a speed competition, not really.

It’s all about breath, and stamina, and the fine line between your own safety and the prize.

Hecy steals a great big breath and fills up her dwarven lungs and plunges down, down, down.  There’s something she’s not used to in the water that stings her eyes, but she forces them open as she goes down, down, down.

The walls rise up around her, cold and white and not at all like the filtering deep blue of diving into the ocean.  It makes Hecy feel trapped. Like at any moment the walls are going to crash in and ram into her.

She dives down and down and down and knows that her breath is running out, but she doesn’t know how deep she is because she can’t see the sunlight filtering through the water and can’t see the other divers.  So Hecy keeps going, kicking her feet. Down. Down. _Down_.

Her vision flickers, black and white, and she doesn't think it’s darkvision.  It’s a warning sign, and Hecy turns, speeding for the surface as fast as she can.  It feels like she’s going to burst, like every breath of air has been sucked out from her, and the top of the pool is still so far away and -

She makes it.

Her nose is bleeding and her ears are ringing and Furniss is screaming, half in praise and half in fear about being foolish, about pushing herself too far.

But then a tall human man is leading her to a pedestal and handing her a golden medal and Hecy is holding it up to the audience.  There’s blood and tears still on her face but she _did_ it.

She did something great, and a bright light flashes in the crowd, and the next morning Hecy’s picture holding up her first place medal is in all of the papers.

\---

“What’s this?” her mother asks over breakfast two days later, slapping down a newspaper over Hecy’s oatmeal.

She looks down nervously.  There’s a picture on one of the middle pages of a trio of swimmers holding aloft medals, and Hecy feels her stomach drop to her hairy toes.   _She’s_ in that picture.

“I...” she stammers, because of course she didn’t tell her mother.  Because the medal is still in Furniss’s office because she didn’t want her mom to find out.

Her mom picks the article back up, shakes the paper, and reads with a flourish.  “Hecuba Roughridge. At only twelve years of age, this dwarven prodigy dove an astounding one hundred and sixty-eight feet, beating competitors by over a dozen feet.”  She stops, stares down at her daughter. “Am I to believe this is some _other_ Hecuba Roughridge?”

Her voice is cold as ice, and Hecy wants to fold in on herself and die.

“I... no, Mama,” she manages.  “I, um. I... I won.”

“I can see that,” she says, voice heavy with displeasure.  “And how did you get to _Neverwinter University_ to win?”

“With... with school.”

Her mom’s lined face creases into even more of a scowl.  “Well, it’s a good thing you’re old enough for an apprenticeship, then.  Tomorrow’s your last day.”

\---

Ava and Jeremy are still eleven, and can’t believe - well, can’t believe anything.  They can’t believe she won, that she almost broke the world record. At _twelve_!  They can’t believe that her mom’s not proud.  Most importantly, though, they can’t believe that she’s leaving school.

“But you’re not done,” Jeremy points out.  “You’ve still go another year!”

“And you’re gonna leave us,” says Ava, voice small.  “Do you know where you’re gonna apprentice? We’ll come visit you.”

“The pearl farms,” Hecy tells them.  

“That’s good,” Ava says hopefully.  “You wanted to do that!”

“Yeah,” she sighs, and scuffs her foot through the thin layer of sand that coats almost everything in Clamshell Coast.  “I guess.”

“We’ll swim over every afternoon,” Jeremy promises.  “During swim time! We can come play!”

Hecy nods, and then she’s crying, and Ava and Jeremy are pulling her into a hug.  They’re eleven and twelve respectively, but everything seems so final, like her world’s crashing down around her.

She tries to tell herself that the pearl farm is something she wants.  She’ll get to swim every day! But then Hecy remembers how it felt diving down down down, thinks about what she’d planned to dive even further next time.  She can taste the chemicals in the water and the triumph of that golden medal.

Hecy’s wanted the pearl farm her whole life.  She’s gonna have to accept it.

\---

She leaves her golden medal in Furniss’s office.  The older dwarf - still so young - cries when she tells her that she’s not going to be diving in competitions anymore.

“Don’t stop,” she tells Hecuba, blue eyes sparkling and intense.  “Don’t stop, okay?”

“Okay,” Hecy says.  It’s not like she wants to.  “I won’t.”

Furniss hugs her.  “You’re gonna be just fine,” she whispers.  “It’s gonna be okay.”

Hecy is crying now, too, but she thinks about how Furniss doesn’t say she’s going to do great things anymore.  Maybe she had her chance, and now it’s over - she had her chance, and she blew it.

Maybe she should’ve just stayed in Clamshell Coast the whole time.

\---

The pearl farm is big and loud and chaotic.  Hecy’s at least excited to swim - but almost cries when she finds out that’s not what they want her for.  No, they need somebody else to help with documentation and filing.

She goes back home for her rose-colored glasses in their pretty blue case.  She didn’t think she’d need them.

Hecy goes back with glasses on and her heart sunk.  She remembers when she first went to school, when the pearl farms seemed like an escape.

As she shuffles files and squints at names, it doesn't seem like she’s gotten out yet.

\---

She doesn’t see Ava and Jeremy as much as she’d like.  They swim over a few times, but she’s always inside, or running errands for someone else.  Eventually, they stop coming. Hecy is thirteen years old, and her social life has become her mother - who she doesn’t really talk to - and her boss.  Some old guy named Hitower. He mostly ignores her as long as she’s got the files on his desk on time.

\---

It’s lonely, to say the least.  She’s out of the water for days, then weeks, then months.  Even Candlenights has paperwork to be done, and it’s not like she was getting presents anyway.

Hecy learns to live with it.  She files papers fast as lightning, and practices her deep diving breaths, and thinks about running off to Bottlenose Cove to _actually_ work at a pearl farm.

She doesn’t run, though.  She does exactly what she’s always done - Hecuba stays.

\---

Hecuba stays and grows.  The older she gets, the more she understands her mother.  She’s young, as far as dwarves go, and she’s pretty much tied down by her daughter.  She’s working two badly-paying jobs and only knows how to make a living.

Hecy hates her at the same time she pities her.  She’s just turned fourteen, and thinks that she knows a thing or two about being Grown Up.  It never really gets easier.

\---

One day, there's a mild crisis at the pearl farm. One of the divers got sick, and a big shipment of pearls is due the next day, and Hitower’s probably developing an ulcer over it. Hecy likes to think she's smart - and she _knows_ she's smart enough to not pass up an opportunity like this one.

She sets a thick stack of files on Hitower’s desk, adjusts her glasses. After a long moment, he looks up at her.

Hecy doesn't wait for him to say anything. “I can dive,” she tells him, and motions to the files. “And the paperwork’s done.”

Hitower straightens a little, eyeing Hecy with a merchants eye. She stares him down, doing her best to not feel like a slab of meat that can swim.

Finally, though, he nods. “Better than nothing.”

Hecy thanks him and books it out of the office. She runs to the docks, shoving her glasses away and grinning into the salty wind.

“What're you doing?” asks the dock manager, a gruff dwarf she thinks is named Denn.

“Hitower’s having me dive,” she replies, and tries to push down her smile.

Denn looks her over, their dark eyes analyzing her. Finally, they say, “there's wetsuits over there. Find Samma, she’ll show you the ropes.”

Hecy stammers her thanks, and races down the docks. The rough wooden planks underneath her bare feet feel like coming home. The sharp wind bites her skin and flings her hair around. She can't remember the last time she felt so good.

She peels off her office clothes and practically jumps into a wetsuit. Hecy doesn't have a hair tie, but she hasn't been swimming for a decade and a half for nothing. She finds a bit of broken rope and is knotting her hair back when someone taps her on the shoulder.

Hecy spins with a start, hands still busy behind her head. There stands another dwarf, with caramel skin and thick black hair that's tied into what we're probably neat braids, but have been thoroughly soaked and messed.

“Hi, I'm Samma,” she says very quickly. “Hecuba, right? Cool. Glad you know the rope trick-” she nods at Hecy’s bun- “seems like you've swam before. Anyway, um. We need more people down on the ends of the lines. I told Denn to not start a new kid there but hey? What can you do.”

Hecy’s a little startled by Samma’s speed, her intensity. She settles for nodding, and hurrying after her as she races further down the dock.

“You've been diving before,” she says, and it's not a question. “We're gonna swim to the ends of the lines, dive to the bottoms of the oyster strands, and remove the oysters that’re glowing orange. Denn’s cast locate object on pearls of a certain size, and they're glowing. Got it?”

For all that Samma has fairly short, dwarven legs, she's running fast, so fast. Hecy, who's been working an office job for months, is just struggling to keep up. She huffs out an affirmative sound.

At the end of the dock, Samma finally stops. She points to a long rope floating in the water. “We’ll start here.”

And, with a wink at Hecy, she leaps off the end of the slowly swaying boardwalk.

Hecy puts her hands up over her head, just like she practiced with Furniss. She gulps in a huge breath of air, and dives after Samma.

\---

It's clear that Hecy isn't in the same swimming shape she was before she started her apprenticeship - but it's also clear that she's great, anyway. Fast as Samma is, Hecy easily passes her under the water. She shoots her a thumbs up, and Hecy feels a long-forgotten rush of pride.

With the sun filtering through the water and strands of orange-glowing oysters all around, Hecy has the strangest feeling. She feels... warm. Peaceful.

She's collected half a basket of orange oysters before realizing that she's _happy_.

\---

Hecy and Denn go to Hitower early the next morning. The previous day's crisis has been averted; all is right in his world.

“I want Hecuba on my diving crew,” Denn says, perfectly authoritative. “She's as good as the rest.”

Hitower looks up in confusion. “But she's apprenticed in the office.”

“And I'm telling you that she'll help more when she's diving. Mr. Hitower, listen. She was diving for half the time the others were yesterday, and she pulled up the same amount of oysters.”

He hems and haws and fiddles his thumbs, but finally Denn gets him to agree. Hecy is joining the diving crew. She’ll dive and shuck oysters under the hot sun. And, best of all - Hecy’s going to get _paid_.

Well, she was already getting paid, but it all went to her mother. Now, she gets _bonuses_ for beating a quota. And that money goes straight to _her_ , and her alone.

She's grinning big enough to split the world. When they leave Hitower's office, Hecy hugs Denn. They stand there for a moment before scooting her off.

“Don't look at me like I hung the moon,” they tell Hecuba. “I just helped the company.”

She nods, but that doesn't change anything. This is the first taste of freedom she's had since she won gold.

But this doesn't taste like blood and chemicals and a gold medal. No, this victory tastes like sea salt and fish and happiness.

Hecy thinks about the bonuses she can get while she's walking home that evening. She thinks that she could pay her way back to Neverwinter to compete. She thinks that she could finish her apprenticeship and move out of her mom’s house.

They both sound like happiness. Walking along the sandy road, Hecy promises herself that she'll chase at least one of them.

\---

Diving isn't all fun and games, though. Hecy rides it like a high for the first week before it starts to get hard. At first, Hecy likes being able to get in and out of the ocean to shuck oysters and talk to the other divers - Samma and Gabe and Peter, Kass and Sarey and Jojo.

But it's cold out of the water, and all the others are older than Hecy is. She's just turned fifteen, and they're talking about their grown-up children. It's a little lonesome.

But then Samma will challenge Hecy to a race, or Jojo will show her a new braiding method, or Kass will shove her off the dock because “she looked too dry.” It's a new kind of friendship, between her and a bunch of dwarfs a decade or more her senior, but she relishes it all the same.

Hecy laughs about wayward children and promises to never run away. She hears about unfaithful spouses and promises to never be one.

She hears it all, and promises, and only sometimes wonders what Ava and Jeremy are doing. Where they're apprenticed. If they're happy.

\---

On her first payday - her first _real_ one - Hecy’s amazed. She's never had any money in her life, and now she's got ten whole gold pieces for _herself_.

She kind of wants to go blow it all right now. She kind of wants to buy a ticket to Neverwinter and not look back.

Instead, she takes Denn’s advice, and opens a savings account that only she can access.  She puts every last gp inside, and walks away from the bank feeling very Grown Up and very young at the same time.

\---

Hecy has just turned fifteen when there’s a knock at the door.  Her mom isn’t home, and she’s running through her deep-breathing exercises while she raids the cupboards for anything chocolate.  So Hecy does what she’s used to doing - she marches up, and opens the door.

Outside is a familiar face.  Dark skinned and bearded, still short.  Marred only by the passage of time - and the black eye and bleeding lip that she sports.   _Ava_.

Hecy moves aside almost automatically to let her inside.  “Ava, what... what happened?”

Ava shakes her head a little - she grew up strong, Hecy notices, with big muscles and plenty of scars - and wipes away a trickle of blood from her lip.  “I got in a fight. I’m sorry to come here, I...”

“Don’t apologize,” says Hecy, feeling brave and bold and young with her childhood best friend by her side.  “C’mon, I’ll get you an ice pack.”

She does, and gets her some dinner, too. Ava eats ravenously.

“So what’ve you been up to?” she asks her.  It’s been far too long since she’s had friends her own age, and Hecy fully intents to take advantage of this visit.

“Um,” begins Ava.  “Just, y’know... stuff.”

She’s never been a good liar.  Hecy shoots her the most disappointed glare she can manage.

Ava sinks a little lower in her seat.  “I, uh. I apprenticed with a blacksmith, for a while.”

“That’s good,” she says.  “Make me any cool handaxes?”

“...I wasn’t there for that long.”

“Oh.”

They’re silent for a long while before Ava speaks again.

“The blacksmith got a new apprentice, someone who was better than me, I guess, and then... I was out of there.  And, I wanted to, y’know, make some money, so...” she trails off, spreading her arms, and Hecy takes another good look at her.

Ava - quiet, shy Ava - is wearing armor and ripped jeans, combat boots and a nose piercing.  She’s got a dagger in her waistband and - is that a _tattoo_ ? - peeking out of her collar.  “I just... I got good at fighting.  Prize fighting, for money. I got _really_ good, Hecy.”

“And is that why...” she motions at her bruised eye, her bloody lip.

“Yeah,” she replies, voice dipping softer.  “I lost my fight tonight.”

“Can you...” she trails off.  She doesn’t even know what to suggest.  “Can you still go back? Do you have a place to sleep?”

Ava shakes her head.  Ava’s fourteen, and Hecy has no idea what happened to her parents, but the look on her face tells her that they’ll be of no help.

“You can sleep here tonight,” she tells her, and Ava smiles gratefully.

“Thanks, Hecy.”

\---

Hecy wakes Ava up the next morning before dawn.  Her mom hadn’t noticed another person sleeping on their ratty couch, thankfully, and the next step is to make sure she doesn’t notice it any more.

“I can’t go back,” Ava whispers over a hurried breakfast.  “I can’t, Hecy. They’ll kill me. They were betting big on me, and I lost, and... I can’t.”

Hecy nods.  She knows desperation when she sees it.  “Can you get a job in another city?” she asks, and then adds, “A _legal_ one?”

Ava nods firmly.  “I can blacksmith a little.  And I can wait tables and stuff.  Or I can always join the city guard, I guess, if I say I'm older.”

Hecy takes her hand.  “C’mon. I’ve got a solution.”

\---

Ava hangs around the beaches, out of sight, while Hecy goes to work.  Then they rush to the bank - quickly, before it closes, and Hecy takes out the fifteen gp she's been so carefully saving.

The two girls look at each other, outside the bank, as the sun sets.  They’re fourteen and fifteen, but have grown older than their years. Hecy knows in her gut that this will be the last time she sees her best friend.

She presses the gold pieces into Ava’s hands.  “Here,” she says. “Take the train to Neverwinter, should be ten gp.  Then find a job and some housing. I can’t... I can’t get letters at my house, but at work...”

Hecy scribbles down her work address on Ava’s hand.  The ink glistens.

They’re silent for a long moment before pulling each other into an embrace.

“Be safe,” Hecy finally whispers.

“I will,” she promises, and catches Hecy’s hand almost desperately.  “Hey. Hecy, you don’t have to... you don’t always have to do what everybody else wants, y’know?”

Hecy shrugs.  “Maybe?”

A half-smile ghosts across Ava’s face.  “You gotta fight for yourself, sometimes.

“Thanks, Ava,” she whispers.

Ava nods, and looks at Hecy like she is something precious.  Then she leans forward, and pecks her gently on the lips. It’s nothing romantic, but Hecy imagines she can taste the touch like a brand.  The smoke of her loss.

And then she’s gone, and Hecy turns around, and heads for home.

\---

_iii._

Dwarves become legal adults when they turn sixteen, but Hecy’s birthday passes without much of a change at all.  She gets up the morning before and goes to work and come home; she gets up the morning after and goes to work and comes home.  She kind of thinks her mom’s forgotten when her birthday is.

But that’s okay.  At work, Kass made her a cake and Peter bought her new hair ties and everybody else pitched in to buy her a set of beautiful handaxes.  They’re dark gray and sleek, and Hecy chokes back tears when she opens the wrapping.

“It’s not every day you become an adult,” says Sarey before pulling her into a hug.  “We thought you might want to choose a class, and from what I’ve seen, I think you’d _excel_ with weaponry.”

“Thanks,” she manages, and runs her fingers carefully over the blades.  They’re beautiful, and yeah, Hecy can see herself as a fighter in twenty years.  Or a ranger, maybe, because she’s so good in the water.

But mostly she sees herself swimming and diving for pearls.

Hitower gives her a bonus, too, and tells her that as a legal adult, all of her paycheck will now go straight into her own bank account.

Hecy’s... well, amazed isn’t the right word for it.  No, Hecy is _ecstatic_.  She’s growing up and suddenly the world has shifted right beneath her fingertips.  She’s got two beautiful handaxes and guarantee of money every Friday and every chance in the world.

\---

Dwarven society is different than most other races in quite a few ways, but only one of them really matters to Hecuba.  When someone turns sixteen, they’re formally presented as someone who is now a full-fledged member of the community.

And, for teenage Hecy, being a formal member of the community means that she can _date_.  Her friends at work tell her that she’s too young to be worrying about that nonsense, but she doesn’t really listen to them.

Hecy’s been alone for a very long time.  She doesn’t know much of anything about relationships, but she thinks that being part of a pair would be much better than being part of, well... part of a single.

She’s so, so grateful that there’s no dramatic ball or ceremony she has to attend to be presented.  No, Hecy just goes in to the City Hall, signs some papers, and then she starts getting mail that’s addressed to her instead of her mom.  The helpful clerk tells her that her name will go on the list of overage members that can be accessed by the whole community.

Which...cool.

It’s great and all, but the suitors aren’t exactly lining up at the door.

Hecy knows that she’s still sixteen, and that dwarves live for hundreds of years.  She knows that most dwarves date around for fun for a few decades, and settle down in an arranged marriage when they’re fifty or sixty or so.  

Doesn’t mean a girl can’t dream, though.

She doesn’t really have a social life, and now that Ava’s ran off to Neverwinter, she doesn’t have anyone to compare against.

But nobody comes, and her mom doesn’t arrange anything, and Hecy tries to be fine with that.

\---

She’s... well, not happy really, but Hecy’s content.  And she’s perfectly fine to remain that way for the next few years. Which is exactly what she does.

Hecy stays in her mom’s little hut and earns her own paychecks and studiously saves her money.  She dives for pearls and laughs with her coworkers and every so often, she wonders about Ava. She never heard back for her.

Hecy’s quietly celebrating her twenty-fifth birthday when an unfamiliar letter comes in the mail.  It’s on a fancy, heavy parchment, and she’s almost immediately suspicious. However, she can’t do magic, and has no way of testing it to see if it’s a trap.

She pokes it a few times with one of her handaxes.  (They never leave her side.) When nothing happens, she figures it’s probably fine, and tears open the fancy wax seal.

It is fine, and it’s also not.

The letter reads:

_Dear Ms. Hecuba Roughridge,_

_You are cordially invited to the wedding of Ms. Ava Redreef to Mr. Baern Torrun, to take place the fifteenth of December.  We politely request your presence at the ceremony as a Bridesmaid, and ask that you report to Torrun Manor in Neverwinter by the tenth of December._

_Yours,_

_Mr. Baern Torrun and Ms. Ava Redreef_

Hecy can’t believe it.  She honestly, sincerely, cannot believe it.  Ava - Ava, who’s only twenty-four! - is getting _married_ .  She’s getting married in _Neverwinter_ to some guy who by the sound of things is rich as all get-out.

Wow.

She talks to Hitower, and points out that she’s worked for him for thirteen years and has never once asked for a day off.  He hems and haws, but grants her two weeks to attend Ava’s wedding.

Which, honestly, is just... wow.  She’d last seen Ava bloody, in old armor and ripped pants, and now she’s going to be a _bride_.

Samma takes Hecy shopping, because Samma’s been to weddings before.  They run into Jeremy in the tailor’s shop, and there’s a brief reunion - not nearly long enough, but Samma insists that Hecy needs shoes to go to the manor and apparently new clothes, too.

If she can say two things in Samma’s favor, it’s that she’s quick and she’s cheap.  If she can say things against her, well... Hecy doesn’t like shopping, and she likes it less after the fifth hour of it.

Finally, though, she wrangles her shoes and her new clothes to her home, kind of hoping that her mom won’t be back yet.

Of course she is, because when have the gods ever smiled on Hecy?  Never, that’s when.

“What’s all that for?” her mother asks, lined eyes squinting suspiciously.

“I’m going to Neverwinter to attend Ava’s wedding,” Hecy mumbles, trying to skirt to her room to put down her packages.

“Speak _clearly_.  Enunciate, Hecuba.  Honestly...”

She keeps blocking the doorway.  “Who’s she marrying?”

“Baern Torrun,” Hecy says flatly.  Since even she’s heard of the Torrun clan, they’ve got to be important - a knowledge accentuated by her mother’s gasp.  Hecy takes advantage of it to step inside and drop the bags onto her bed.

“The _Torruns_ ?!” her mom shrieks from behind her.  “What are you going to _wear_?!  Ava’s young, but what if they’ve got another son?!”

She does her best to stifle a sigh.  It’s going to be a long night.

\---

For the second time in her life, Hecuba takes the train to Neverwinter.  It’s been almost fourteen years since she’d last been, but she’s prepared this time.  She’s got her luggage filled with her new clothes, and shoes on her feet, and glasses in her handbag.  Hecy’s got a pearl necklace to give to the couple as a gift, and fifty gp in her wallet, and a really fancy braid in her beard.

She watches the billboards whiz by the train.  One of them advertises Miller products - mostly elevators.  Another is devoted to Redcheek Cider. In the sky above them, a flock of pegasi circle, and Hecy joins all the other passengers in sticking their heads out the windows to watch the beautiful creatures fly.

When the train pulls to a stop in Neverwinter, Hecy firmly reminds herself not to stare, to not seem like another clueless tourist.  But for a girl from the beach settlement of Clamshell Coast, where sand covers everything and people go around barefoot, well... going to the big city is like setting foot onto another plane.

She tries not to stare, she really does.  But Hecy can’t help herself. She watches it all with fascination - the roaring battlewagons, the crowds of people of every race, the way the buildings rise so high into the blue sky she can barely see their tops.

A human man is holding a sign with her name on it.  Hecy makes her way over to him. He’s dressed fancily, wearing clothes that even an uncultured dwarf can tell mark him as a servant of a high-up household.

“I take it you are Ms. Hecuba Roughridge?” he asks as she approaches, sweeping off his cap and bowing.

“Yes,” she says, and resists the urge to bow back.  That’s not how things are in Neverwinter, she reminds herself.

“Wonderful,” he says, and pulls open the door to a battlewagon, offers Hecy his hand to step inside.  She takes it, steps up, although it’s a height she could easily jump double.

He closes the door for her, replaces his hat, and climbs into the driver’s seat.  “You’re welcome to sit back and relax, Ms. Roughridge. We’ll be at Torrun Manor shortly.”

“Thanks,” she says, peering out the window at the towering city they’re driving through.  “Um, sorry. What’s your name?”

In the rearview mirror, she can see his brown eyes.  He looks... surprised, for a split second, but carefully tones down the emotion.  “I’m Frederick,” he says. “I’m a coachman for the Torrun Family.”

He says _Torrun Family_ like a proper noun, and Hecy shifts a little in her seat.  This is nothing at all like her home.

\---

Hecy is welcomed to Torrun Manor by the butler, a portly dwarf who apologizes for the fact that the Torrun Family (with capital letters and all) is out for the afternoon, but they will be there to properly greet her over dinner.  He shows her to her room, unlocks the door, and bustles off looking important.

She pushes the door open almost nervously.  Inside is a room, well... it’s a room that’s probably bigger than her entire house.  The bed’s the size of her room. The wardrobe is as big as a battle wagon. Her luggage, helpfully carried inside by Frederick, looks pitifully small.

Hecy shuffles off her shoes, picks them up.  She doesn’t want to get the fancy white carpet dirty.

When she opens the huge wardrobe, she gasps again.  There’s no room to set her shoes. The _reason_ there’s no room is because the whole thing is practically filled to bursting with clothing - fashionable dresses and outfits and shoes, jewelry and blouses and jackets.

She’s very glad that nobody else is in there, because the noise she made was definitely audible.  She reaches out one hand to stroke the soft green sleeve of a dress, but catches herself before she can touch the expensive fabric.  There’s probably been some sort of a mistake, and she ended up in the room of someone with money. Someone who doesn’t work at a pearl farm.

She’s still frozen in front of the open doors when there’s a knock at the door to her room.

Hecy spins like a thief caught in the act, before catching herself.  This is where the butler told her to go. This is where her luggage is.

She sets her shoes on top of her suitcase, and tries to steady her breathing.  (She takes a big breath like she’s about to dive down down down.)

“Hecy!” squeals the dwarf outside once she opens her door and into her arms barrels Ava.  She’s wearing a fancy dress of a red fabric that’s smooth to the touch, embroidered with gold and jewels.  “Oh my gods, I’m so glad you made it!”

She staggers backwards a little, but manages to support her full weight.  “How are you?!” she replies. “It’s been... it’s been forever!”

Ava laughs, an awkward nervous thing.  “I know, right! I’m so glad you got to come, I don’t have a ton of friends from Clamshell Coast, and otherwise my only bridesmaid would be Baern’s little sister.”  She makes a face, but laughs out of it. “Nah, I’m kidding! Artin’s wonderful, but nobody really compares to a childhood friend, do they!”

And she swept her up into another hug.

As they embraced, Hecy’s braid slid over and into Ava’s face, and into her ear she whispered, “They’re watching us.  Don’t talk about the night I left.”

All Hecy can do is nod and smile and make banal small talk.  After a little bit of “how are you?!” and “Oh, how’s Jeremy?!” Ava makes her excuses.

Hecy catches her hand.  “Ava...” the fear in her eyes is all the warning she needs.  “Is the stuff in the wardrobe for me?”

She lets out a tiny breath of relief.  “Of course it is, silly! I know how traditional you are, but you can have some fun while you’re out here!  Remind me, how long do you have?”

“I’m heading back Candlenights Eve,” Hecy replies.  “I hate to go, though!”

Ava hugs her again, but doesn’t whisper any other cryptic words to her.  And with a mystery ringing in Hecy’s ears, she flits out the golden door.

\---

Hecy has absolutely _no idea_ what Ava’s got herself into.  But if Ava is keeping secrets, telling her to keep quiet about something, well... she trusts her enough to obey.

Even so, it’s with suspicion nestling in her breast that she changes into a fancy blue dress that a maid suggests and allows herself to be led down to dinner.

The dining room is ostentatious in every sense of the word.  Even though Hecy’s only eating with Ava and Baern’s family, a riff of trumpets goes off when she enters the gilded room, and she’s formally announced as “Ms. Hecuba Roughridge of Clamshell Coast!”

She’s seated between Ava and the young dwarf she soon learns is Baern’s little sister, Artin Torrun.  The Torrun family is, naturally, a group of highly gracious hosts.

“Oh, Hecuba darling,” simpers the lady of the house, who is introduced to her as Ilde Torrun, the mother of the groom.  “We’re so glad you were able to join us. We just _adore_ Ava, and we’re so pleased to meet her good friend.”

“It’s so thoughtful of you to invite me,” replies Hecy, kind of hating Ilde and her perfectly coiffed blonde hair and how comfortable she looks in her gold-leafed chair.

“Oh, it was no trouble at all,” insists her husband, Baern Senior.  “We love having good company.”

He’s large and jovial and something about him strikes Hecy the wrong way.  But Artin - who can’t be more than fourteen - smiles at her, and says, “It’s nice to have another girl in the house,” and she tries to put her worries away.

“Dear Baern Junior got called away on some important business last-minute,” Ava tells Hecy, nudging her knee under the white embroidered tablecloth.  “I can’t _wait_ for you to meet him!”

As all formal dinners do, somehow it passes.  Hecy was more than ready to escape to her rooms.  But then there was a dessert course - and the conversation turned further in her direction than she would’ve liked.

“So, Hecuba darling,” said Ilde briskly, picking up her dessert fork with flawless elegance.  “You’re a member of the Roughridge clan? I must say, I can’t recall the name.”

Hecy forces a smile onto her face - it’s the customer service smile that she used almost every day of her apprenticeship.  “I wouldn’t have expected you to,” she says sweetly. “The Roughridge clan is very devoted to traditional practices. As such, we congregate around Clamshell Coast and the lifestyle our ancestors engaged in.  I must admit, not many Roughridges travel or spread extensively.”

“Ah, tradition,” adds Baern Senior as a servant refills his wine glass.  “Nothing finer!”

“Well said, Papa,” agrees little Artin, and Hecy feels her walls building back up.  Nothing here is quite like her home, and she needs to remember that. _Especially_ if she has to keep lying about things like the Roughridge clan.  And _most_ especially if she wants to avoid Ilde finding out that she and her mother compromise the entirety of it.

\---

They’ve been at dessert for much too long when Ilde turns the conversation back towards Hecy.

“Oh, I recall!” she exclaims, fair cheeks having pinkened over the course of the evening. “Are you the young lady who was diving all those years ago?”

Hecy tries to not visibly start.  That was... that was almost fourteen years ago, why...

She nods.

“Well,” she continues with a smile.  “That’s just wonderful! We try to keep an ear out for talent among the dwarven race, you understand.  If you ever feel like taking it up again... traditional as I’m sure pearl diving may be... we support many of the arts and sports and the like.  You’d always have a room with us.”

From across the table, Ava catches Hecy’s eye just before she’s about to stammer her thanks.  Slowly, slowly, Ava shakes her head _no_.

“That’s very kind of you,” Hecy manages, and dodges around a definitive answer for the rest of the meal.

\---

Finally, _finally_ , the meal adjourns.  Ava falls into step with Hecy as she hurries out.  “Take a turn around the gardens with me?” she asks, and Hecy readily agrees.

They walk in silence, out a set of thick iron doors that servants open for them, and into a sprawling hedge maze.  In the distance, she can see the towers of Neverwinter, reaching for the sky.

Ava doesn’t say anything until they’ve wound their way into the very center of the maze, where a fountain bubbles happily.

“They’ve got a scuttlebuddy watching us,” is the first thing she says, smiling brightly.  “But with the water, they can’t hear us! So we can talk freely out here.”

“Oh, good,” Hecy says, and plops ungracefully on the edge of the fountain.  “Ava, what the _hell_ is going on?!”

“Brace yourself,” she warns, and something in her eyes reminds Hecy of the night that Ava came to her, beat up and needing to escape.  “So. Here goes.

“I made it to Neverwinter that night, got a place to stay, picked up a quick shift in some mage’s laboratory.  I cleaned up, helped them out with their experiments, picked up some magic on the side. Nothing major, just some easy stuff.  Life was... well, it was good. It was fine. But, Hecy... I’ve never been one to just, y’know... sit on the sidelines.”

Hecy thinks back to the timid Ava she’d met the first day of school - and thinks about how she bounced with excitement when it came time for training, how she excelled in throwing and sneaking and dodging.  How she took to it like Hecy took to water.

“And, I... I got in with one of the gangs.”  They make eye contact. “I should be sorry, Hecy, but... I’m... I’m not.  And I guess I’m sorry I’m not sorry? But, it’s... it’s something I’m _good_ at.  You’ve got your swimming and your diving and stuff -” how does Hecy tell her that she really doesn’t, not anymore- “and this, to me, Hecy, it felt like coming home.  You can understand that, surely?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks.  But... we started running scams together.  And I’m, uh, really good at being the face of the scam.  And, one day, the big boss proposes the biggest scam yet - we rob the Torruns.”

“Wait,” Hecy says, and holds up a hand.  “Ava. You brought me here so I can help you _rob_ these people?”

“No,” she says, and she does look a little shamefaced in her fancy dress.  “ _I’m_ here to rob them.  You’re here to make it look like I’ve actually got plans to go through with the wedding.”

“Ava,” she replies, horror mounting, “what’s your exit plan?  How’re you gonna get _me_ out?! They know who I am, they know where I’m from--”

“It’s easy,” she insists.  “I’m still getting _married_ , silly.  We do the wedding just like a normal wedding, you go on your merry way back to Clamshell Coast with a new closet of fancy clothes and stuff, and after our honeymoon I make myself scarce.  Brilliant, I know!”

Hecy can think of _so_ many things that could go wrong.  But she’s not a rogue, and even so... even after everything that’s happened, she still trusts Ava.  And even if she thinks the plan is kind of stupid, she’s pretty sure it could turn out alright.

That sort of thing usually does, right?

\---

Being a bridesmaid is _so_ much more work than Hecy’d expected.  She works a full-time, physical job, and she still goes to bed the next day after wedding planning exhausted.  She’s got blisters from her heels, doesn’t know how to do hair for a wedding, and has absolutely no opinion on the seating arrangements.  Still, for Ava’s sake, she pretends. Hecy pretends as hard as she can, and by the end of the day, she’s half-convinced herself that she actually cares about the gold versus silver filigree on the namecards.

Hecy doesn’t get a chance to talk to Ava alone that night, or any of the nights leading up to her wedding.  She thinks about it, though, and firmly resolves to never get involved with anything shady ever again. She’d much prefer to make an honest living, thank you.

The closest they get to a private conversation is the night before.  Ava and Hecy linger in the courtyard, and the gurgling fountain in the wall is probably loud enough to cover their conversation - but they’re interrupted before they can even begin.

“Hey,” says Artin, smiling up at them like she’s trying to be older than she is.  “Do you guys wanna go to the spa with me? A girls’ night before you’re married?”

“That sounds wonderful!” Ava grins, and hugs Artin to her side like they’re already related.  

Hecy has absolutely no idea what one would do at a spa, except maybe relax.  If she’s honest, the most relaxing things she could do right now would be go swimming and then go to bed, but she just nods and lets Artin bustle them along.

There’s a spa inside of Torrun Manor, because of course there is.  There’s a half-elf working there who chooses nail polish for each of them, and wrangles Hecy’s chewed nails into something that’s actually... pretty.

It’s strange in how foreign it is, those two words in the same sentence.   _Hecy_ and _pretty_.

It’s different than everything she’s known before, but even so... she kind of likes being the pretty one.

\---

Ava marries Baern Junior on December fifteenth.  Like everything else the Torruns do, it’s incredibly _extra_.  Everything is shiny and gold, white and clean and pressed perfect.  Hecy’s well aware that the pearl necklace she gifted the couple pales in comparison to the other gifts.  In some small, convoluted way, she’s consoled by realizing it’s the only wedding gift Ava might be able to keep once her heist is run.

The wedding itself goes... well.  Incredibly well, as far as fake weddings go.  Baern Junior is pretty nice, and he and Ava make a stunning couple.  When they kiss, people are crying, and it’s only because Hecy knows better that she doesn't think them entirely in love.

Hecy laughs at bad jokes with Artin and eats too much cake and makes connections among Neverwinter’s High and Mighty.  She tucks their business cards into her sleeve, and tells herself that they will be useful someday, if she can ever handle so much sucking up to rich people again.

\---

That evening, Ava and Baern Junior leave on their honeymoon in a flying carriage pulled by pegasi.  Artin tells Hecy that one of the coachmen will follow in a normal coach with all of their luggage and such.

Hecy smiles, and asks Ilde where she got her necklace, because it’s _lovely_.

She spends the next few days with the Torruns.  Artin, young though she is, attaches to Hecy. And Hecy, aloof as she’s trying to act, connects with Artin.

Highly affronted that she doesn't already have one, the young dwarf gives her a stone of farspeech.  The only number Hecy has to put in it - it’s a brand new technology, after all, and she protests for an hour before accepting it- is Artin’s.

When it comes time for Hecy to return to her hometown, Artin cries, and then helps her pack up her entire new wardrobe into a new truck the Torrun family bought for her.

“Thank you so much for your hospitality,” she says as she embraces Ilde, who hugs her back.  “This has been an occasion to remember.”

Ilde smiles down at Hecy.  “I do hope you’ll visit again soon.  We’d love to attend one of your competitions if you decide to do so again, and Artin will miss you so.”

\---

Artin insists on coming with Frederick and Hecy to the train station, and Hecy can see her crying as the train pulls away.

\---

Hecy is twenty-seven, and the only person who messages her on her stone of farspeech is Artin.  They hadn’t spoken for months when Ava and Baern Junior disappeared on their honeymoon - “Missing, Presumed Dead” - but in Artin’s grief, she’d gotten back in touch.

Artin tells her about her suitors and her schooling and how she wishes she could be let out of the manor.  Hecy tells her about the pearl farm, and glosses over the bad parts of relative freedom. She is young and still living in a hut with her mother, but she’s got a trunk of fancy clothes to pawn and a case of jewelry in her bank vault.

Hecy can leave, if she wants to.  She’s not sure why she still stays.

When her stone of farspeech buzzes during her lunch break, Hecy looks down expecting it to be from Artin.  Instead it’s from an unknown frequency - and not just an _unknown_ frequency.  It’s _blocked_.  She couldn’t read the number if she wanted to.

Confused and nervous, Hecy holds it up to her ear.  “Hello?”

“Hecy?” asks the person on the other end.

“Who is this?”

“You don’t remember me?” they ask, and it’s the familiar, amused upturn in their voice that cinches it for her.

“Wait, _Ava?_!”

\---

Hecy tells Hitower that she’s sick, ate some bad sushi, and leaves work early to finish the call.  Apparently, Ava and Baern Junior - apparently _actually_ in love, not a fake like she’d thought - had ditched their lives with all the money they could steal.

She doesn’t want to admit it, but Hecy’s proud of Ava, in a twisted sort of way.  She knew what she wanted, and she fought her way for it, and... she got it.

It reminds Hecy of the fairy tales her father used to tell.  A girl has a problem, solves it, and falls in love along the way.  It certainly worked for Ava, at least.

Now if Hecy could get a taste of it, that’d be nice, too.

\---

She saves her money and lives at home and dives for pearls.  When Hecy is forty, she buys her own house. It’s not too big, but there’s plenty of room for her.  She’s got a soft bed and room for her trunk of fancy clothes and a kitchen with a bright red teapot.  She can see the ocean out of her window.

\---

_iv._

There’s a knock on her door one evening when Hecy’s back from work making herself dinner.  Her hair’s wet, she’s wearing a muumuu, and she feels waterlogged in every sense of the word.

She pops the door open, ready to chew out whatever mailman thought it was fine to deliver stuff late at night.

It’s not a mailman at all.  Instead, on her front step, stands a dwarven man who looks vaguely familiar to her.  Honestly, he looks kind of scared of her glare, so she does her best to tone it down.  But hey, she’s tired, so she probably doesn’t do the best job.

“Hecuba Roughridge, right?” he asks, and barks a little nervous laugh at the end.

“Yes?”

“You probably don’t remember me, hah, but I’m, um, Flint Ungart, we went to school together.”

Something about the whole situation _clicks_ in Hecuba’s brain.   _Oh_.

“Long time no see,” she says with more of a smile.  “What brings you here?”

She knows exactly why he’s there.

“I was wondering if you’re free on Friday?”

“I’ll have to check my calendar,” Hecy says, as if she ever goes anywhere besides work and home, work and home, the grocery store and home.  “Why don’t you come inside?”

Flint does, and he’s eyeing her house with interest.  She sweeps a pile of dirty laundry off of the floor, kicking it into the hall and out of sight.  When she checks her fake calendar - really, a blank piece of paper, because Hecy doesn’t have a calendar - he’s admiring her collection of intricately shaped driftwood.

“I’m free,” she says, and adjusts her beard braids slightly.  “You?”

Flint smiles, and he suddenly seems miles more confident.  “Apparently not - it sounds like I’ve got a date with a beautiful woman.”

Hecy tells herself not to blush.

Hecy’s pretty sure she’s blushing.

“Is that so?” she replies, trying to come off as Coy and Flirtatious, which is a challenge given that she’s wearing a pink floral shapeless dress, and is exhausted as all get out.

He winks.  “Absolutely.”

Hecy offers him a drink, and one thing leads to another, and soon they’re drinking wine from mugs on her front porch, with an Actual Dinner Date planned for Friday.

The Ungart clan isn’t rich like the Torrens, but they’re certainly not as destitute as the Roughridges are.  Flint’s got a battlewagon parked off of the road, and it’s one of the few in Clamshell Coast.

Maybe it’s the wine, or the date they’ve got planned, or the fact that even though she’s only fifty - relatively young, for a dwarf - Hecuba feels like she’s already let so much of her life slip through her fingers.  Maybe it’s all or none of these things, but when he leans closer to her as he stands to leave, she kisses him.

It’s _really nice_ , and it’s not until she pulls away that she realizes it’s her first kiss.

Flint’s gotten more confident with the drink, and he smiles at her, and kisses her back before leaving.

\---

In the end, the thing with Flint doesn’t work out.  They go on a few dates, kiss a few more times. It never goes further than that, mostly because Hecy realizes she doesn’t actually like him after a few weeks.  He’s not especially fun to talk to, and he’s only good company when they’re both drunk - which isn’t really a good comparison.

They weren’t even technically dating, so when they stop getting together she knows that she shouldn’t be so cut up about it.  But, still, it stings, and it carries over to her work.

Hecy’s still an excellent diver.  The long years have only made her better, faster, stronger.  But she’s usually a good teammate, too. Which is perhaps why her sharpness lets Samma know something’s up.

One thing leads to another, and then Hecy is spending the night at Samma’s.

They walk up through her sandy backyard together, shoulders brushing.  It hits Hecuba, at age fifty, that she’s never even spent the night at a friend’s house, if you don’t count the whirlwind of circumstances that was Ava’s wedding.

Perhaps crying to a friend is something all adults do.  Perhaps Hecy should get used to it, because Samma seems to find it pretty ordinary.  Once she’s gotten it all out of her system, the other dwarf turns to her and asks, “What’s your favorite thing to do?”

“Dive,” says Hecuba because that’s what she always says.

Samma, who’s braids have come undone and now curl softly around her golden face, shakes her head with a laugh.  “You do that everyday for work. What _else_ do you like to do?”

It takes her a long moment to come up with an answer, and even then it’s an uncertain one.  “...throw handaxes?”

She nods.  “Got ‘em with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.  C’mon, Hecy, we’re off to the forest.”

Samma grabs her hand, and as quick as she always does things, is pulling her down the beach towards the tangle of scrawny, intertwining trees.

\---

“Hit the one that looks like an ass,” suggests Samma.

Hecy’s already thrown her axes into the forest, retrieved them, thrown, retrieved... again and again and again, until her muscles warmed up and she felt the same sort of singing sensation that first filled her when she threw them for the first time as a child.

She lands her next axe right where the butt-crack on the weirdly shaped tree would be.  Samma falls backwards into the cold sand, laughing.

Hecy chokes on her own laugh, but it bubbles out of her throat, wild and unfamiliar and beautiful.  She and her friend laugh in the sand for a long time, and it feels like home. It makes Hecy glad that she stayed.

\---

Hecuba dates people on and off for a long time.  Sometimes things work out for a few months, sometimes it’s only a matter of days.  She’s always half-amazed that people keep coming to her doorstep, but hey, she won’t complain.  Hecuba’s absolutely certain that one of these days she’ll get somebody who knows how to stay just like she does.  Somebody with whom a family could be, well... could be more than an afterthought.

Hecuba's almost ashamed to admit that her family, right now, is pretty much an afterthought itself. She’s still in contact with her mother, but only barely.  They see each other in town, and sometimes Hecy goes to her mom’s hut for dinner. Her mom never brings up Hecuba’s marriage, that’s supposed to be arranged by the head of the clan.  Since the two of them make up the entirety of the Roughridge clan, that duty falls to her mother... who has yet to do anything about it.

She’s sixty and anxious, and her mom’s stopped working regular jobs.  She drinks more than is healthy. One bright clear morning, when the sun shines harsh and cold, work is cancelled.  Hecy shrugs, and walks downtown, straight to the city hall. She goes to the clerk, who goes to another clerk, who lets her formally mark herself, Hecuba Roughridge, as head of the Roughridge clan.

She’s just over being young, and even so, Hecuba is the youngest clan leader around. It's not like she has much to lead, but it does put some more prestige behind her name.

As clan leader, she's given the power to arrange marriages between her clan and another. And as the only eligible bachelorette in the Roughridge Clan... well, Hecuba can negotiate for a marriage with anybody she wants.

It's that freedom, honestly, that scares her.

Hecuba's never known freedom. There's always been hands reaching, grabbing, pulling her _back_ and _away_. And now here she sits, her future in her own, shaking hands.

She's got absolutely no idea what to do, who to choose, how to negotiate.

\---

For a brief moment, Hecuba considers talking to her mother, but thinks better of it. She's come too far to go back to that dependence.

Instead, she picks up her stone of farspeech, and dials the only frequency in there.  Artin picks up after the third ring.

“Hecy!” she cries, and she sounds genuinely pleased to hear from her. (It's one of her favorite things about Artin.) “How are you?!”

“I need some advice,” Hecuba admits, and settles down in her plumpest armchair to chat. “I need to arrange a marriage.”

She can practically _hear_ her perk up with interest on the end of the line. “Oh? For who?”

“Your favorite bachelorette.”

“Me?” asks Artin, then bursts into laughter. For all of her elegant ways, she laughs like chaos, and snorts at the end. “Kidding, kidding. Is it... my favorite Roughridge gal?”

“Yep. I'm clan leader now-”

“Oh my gods!” she squeals. “Why didn't so you so in the _first_ place, that's _amazing_!”

Hecy has to laugh a little herself. Artin’s energy is infective. “I'm trying to set up a marriage for myself, and I need... help. Artin, I don't even know _who_ I want to marry.”

“Then why get married?”

“Because...” here she falters. “Because I've been lonely for... for my whole life. I want someone who won't leave.”

“Mm,” she hums in agreement. “You know marriages can be broken, right?”

“Artin, that's not _helpful_ -”

“I know, I'm just pointing it out. So. The first thing you need to figure out is _who_ you want to marry, and who you'll need to negotiate with. Tell me, Hecy, what do you want in a spouse?”

“Um. Dependable. Loyal?”

“Mm-hm?”

“Nice to talk to,” she muses. “And I guess kind of handsome.”

“Rich or no?” asks Artin.

Hecy shrugs. “Doesn't really matter, I mean... oh! Definitely a hard worker.”

“Well, there you have it,” she replies. “Get a list of eligible bachelors in good standing with their families. Figure out who's got what of those values, and so on. My dad’s negotiating for me right now, and he's considering seven marriages - and I know we're at a little bit different levels, but maybe try to negotiate with three? Give yourself options.”

It really is good advice. Hecuba’d never admit it to Artin, but she'd pulled out her rose-tinted glasses and had taken quick notes on what to do.

(The part of Hecuba that loves Neverwinter and wins diving competitions strains against the formality of it all. The biggest part of her, though, knows that tradition is how they keep going. It's why she's arranging herself a marriage. It's why, after all these years, she still stays.)

\---

She makes a list of eligible bachelors.  Artin had told her to come up with three or so, but Hecuba found herself hard-pressed to come up with more than two.  In the end, she’s surrounded by the paperwork it took to get the names, and has only two names to show for it.

The first is Thodur Ebbtide.  He’s from a fairly poor clan, headed by the patriarch Zebun.  It’s telling that Hecy noticed it, because she’s not exactly rolling in the gold herself.  But he’s got a steady job as a cooper, and he doesn’t drink, and he seems like a pleasant fellow.  She’s never talked to him, of course - what need has she for a barrel? - but every so often she’ll pass by his shop.

The second name on the list is Oskar Northfin.  The Northfin clan is again, not rich, but it’s fairly populous, and that alone gives it power.  There’s at least fifty dwarves who belong to their clan - a far cry from the two dwarves of Clan Roughridge.  She knows Oskar, barely, because she sees him in the busier part of the city every so often. He’s on the city guard, which doesn’t really fight, and tends to spend its time firefighting and working as a coast guard.  He’s always ready for action, which - although not on her list - is something Hecy can get behind. Her life’s been slow and steady for far too long.

Oskar is the nephew of the clan’s matriarch, Ris, with whom Hecuba will be negotiating.  She’s hopeful that, even though their clans aren’t really in the same ranking, the fact that there’s a dozen others his age who all need to be married will help persuade Ris to take Hecuba up on her offer.  Even so, it’s with nasty-tasting fear in her stomach that Hecy walks into their first meeting.

\---

She meets with both clans for weeks, trying to juggle her almost-perfect work attendance with the leaders of the other clans, neither of whom work.  Hecuba is careful about her clothes, her hair, her wit. She’s in a strange position, because she isn’t a matriarch trying to make a member of her clan look good.  No, Hecy’s trying to negotiate for her _own_ future, while putting herself in the best light possible.

She tries and fails to not feel like she’s fourteen again, being glanced over like a slab of meat.  Except in this case, she’s not just a body who can dive - she’s a body who can grow the family.

If she’s honest with herself, Hecuba hates being that kind of body even more.  At least diving was something she’d worked for.

She tells herself that if the Roughridge clan ever grows, she won’t sell it’s members to grow another clan with their children.  No, she’ll make sure that whoever she negotiates for beyond herself will be argued more for their skills and intelligence and whatever else than for... their kids.

\---

It’s a whole tangle of bureaucracy that Hecuba kind of hates.  They’ve been meeting for months, her and the Northfins and the Ebbtides.  Any free time she had has been sucked into the whirlwind of getting herself married.

She stares down at her usually-silent stone of farspeech whenever she’s feeling lonely, worn out.  Hecy wishes more than anything that Ava had left a reliable frequency so she could just _call_ her.

(Ava’s the only dwarf Hecy knows who got married for love.  She also ran away with her husband, so perhaps she’s not the ideal scenario... but even so, she knows more than Hecy does.)

But Ava doesn’t call.  So she settles for her next best - and only - option.  Artin.

\---

“Is it supposed to _take_ this long?” she complains the next night after work.  She’s lying on the edge of her bed, hair dangling onto her floor.  “I mean, really. It’s been almost a year, and I haven’t even formally _met_ either of them yet.”

Artin snickers.  “You don’t know the half of it yet,” she replies.  “It took four years before I got to write _letters_ to my suitors.”

“Gross.”

“I know, right?”

Hecy re-situates herself.  “So, how’s everything going in Neverwinter?  What’s your suitor situation like?”

“Oh, my gods,” says Artin, like she’s been dying to talk about it.  “We’re down to five now, and I’m just. I’m just _done_ , y’know?  Because my parents are... well, they’re very traditional, and they really want me to marry a guy and produce an heir, and ‘if I want a female mistress I can have one’.”

“Oh, Artin,” she breathes.  “I... I’m so sorry.”

She hums a little.  “Yeah. I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m a super lesbian, and I just... I dunno.  I mean, its for the family and all, but I just... I just don’t want that.”

“You don’t have to want what they want,” Hecuba tells her.  “You don’t have to want that at all. You can choose your own path.”

On the other end of the line, Artin sniffles, half-sad and half-angry.  “Can I, Hecy?” she challenges. “When was the last time _you_ did?”

“I-” Hecy starts, and stops, because she doesn’t have an answer.

“Thought so.”  She hangs up, and Hecuba stares down at the silent stone of farspeech in her hand for a long, long time.

Hecuba doesn’t know what path she wants.  She has no idea at all.

\---

She meets Thodur Ebbtide under the watchful supervision of his patriarch, Zebun. The whole scenario is almost funny in its seriousness. Hecuba is dressed in one of her old gowns from Ava’s wedding, a sixty-two year old dwarf trying to pretend she's twenty-five again.

It's an awkward, stifled dinner. Everything seems like it's done up too well, too prettily. She'd be fine with that - with her hair braided fancy and her green dress, Hecy blends right in - if it weren't for how uncomfortable Thodur seems. He hardly talks. The longest sentence he says is when she asks him what he does for work.

In the end, it's Zebun and Hecuba making polite small talk. Thodur doesn't have a fault, per se - at least, a fault she thought she cared about. But she wants to be able to _talk_ to her husband, at the very least.

Finally, finally, the meal is over. Both men walk her to the door. Thodur kisses her hand.

Hecuba leaves their house full of shrimp and the hope that her meeting with Oskar goes a _whole_ lot better.

\---

She wears a nice blue dress and braids her beard carefully, thrusting back her shoulders. Before Hecuba leaves her house, she glances at her own reflection.

Strong, she thinks. _Powerful._

But for all her nice words, she can't quite convince herself that she means it.

Even so, the meeting with the Northfins goes better, miles better. For one thing, although it's just Ris and Oskar and Hecuba, conversation flows easily. There's no awkward pauses as he regales them with stories of firefighting, and Ris talks fondly of her progeny, and Hecy laughs over a pearl-diving anecdote.

“I do hope we'll see you again soon,” Ris says as the evening winds down and Hecuba prepares to leave.

“I would love that,” she replies honestly, unable to stop her eyes from darting over towards Oskar.

Ris winks, and laughs a little. “Oskar, come say your goodbyes.”

He kisses her hand, but doesn't release it. For a moment, Hecuba is caught in his hazel eyes, holding his hand.

“It's been... wonderful,” he finally says, voice polite but full. “I can't wait to see you again.”

She can feel a blush tickling her cheeks. “You as well.”

Hecuba's grinning like a fool when she leaves the Northfin Manor. Yes, she thinks, this will work out very well indeed.

\---

A few years later, Hecuba is seventy, and goes into work with a huge grin splitting her face and a pearl ring on her pinky finger.

“Oh my gods!” screams Samma when she sees. She drops the empty basket she's holding, runs to Hecy’s side. “Oh my gods, Hecy!! Who??!”

“Oskar Northfin,” she replies, and can't keep the grin off her face.

“I'm so happy for you!” her friend replies, and gathers her up in a hug.

“What's going on over here?” asks Denn, waddling up. They've certainly gotten older, but no less shrewd.

“Hecy’s getting _married_!”

Their face softens. “Good job, kid. We’re... we’re proud of you.”

“I hope this doesn't mean you're quitting,” Samma says, grabbing Hecuba by the shoulders. “Hecy. You're not quitting, right?”

She just laughs. Pearl diving is unarguably Hecy’s favorite thing, and much as she loves Oskar, she's not gonna give that up for anything.

\---

“What's your schedule like next month?” Hecuba asks Artin, stone of farspeech in one hand, unbraiding her beard with the other.

“Well, you know how it is,” she replies with a hint of a sigh. “Two suitors now, and they pretty much control what I do.”

“Think you could make time for, say... a social event?”

“What kind?” she asks, but there's a new excitement in her voice. “Hecy, you didn't - you aren't -”

“Invitations’ll be out soon,” she promises though a wide smile.”

“Hecy, oh my... I'm a bridesmaid, right? Please tell me I'm a bridesmaid!”

Hecuba just laughs. “Of course you are, I need more than one.”

She's actually asked three people. Samma - who said yes without a second thought. Artin - who needs no convincing. And... and Ava.

It's been decades since they talked, even longer since they saw each other. But it's the first good reason she's has to track Ava down.

So a letter is sent to Ava Redreef, with no address on it. The mail carrier looks confused, but promises to try their best.

Really, that's all Hecuba can hope for.

\---

Her wedding day dawns stormy, and her bridesmaids and entourage flock to her little house. She's got Artin braiding her hair, Denn cheerfully ordering people around, and Samma diving for sea plants to make a bouquet. Really, it's perfect.

It's really not.

Hecuba sent her mother an invitation like an olive branch, and never even got an rsvp.

But that's okay, because it's been years since she talked to her mother. Denn will give her away. It'll all be fine.

And it is fine.

The church is packed with the Northfin clan. Hecuba’s proud of the little gathering she's brought, too - her coworkers, Jeremy, the Thorruns. Even Hitower came out for the occasion. There's something wild and wonderful about the group, but it stings that she's got no blood family there with her.

\---

Hecuba is wearing a cream dress from Ava’s wedding, but it's been embroidered with a thousand tiny pearls.  Denn walks her down the aisle, and Ris shoots her a wink.

She does her best to push everything else out of her mind as she takes Oskar’s hands. They're callused and warm, and he holds her gently, like some fragile thing.

She's caught up in his hazel eyes and the space between them when the priest says, “you may now kiss your spouse!”

Hecuba can hear Artin squealing in the audience as she and Oskar meet.

She breaks away smiling to split the world, and Oskar is grinning, and neither of them lets go.

When Hecuba throws her bouquet, the wrapped base must split apart in midair, because both Samma and Artin snatch half out of the air. The chapel is dead silent for a moment, and Hecuba watches as their eyes meet.

Then there's applause, and the two bridesmaids embrace. Hecy shoots Artin a playful wink, and turns back to her fiancé- no, her _husband_.

\---

All the guests go to their own homes that night, and Hecuba and Oskar go to his. She's gonna have to sell hers, she supposed, but that's a problem for tomorrow.

Indeed, as they embrace, it seems to her that almost every worry she holds can be put off as a problem for tomorrow, too.

And it... it's _nice._ It's _really_ nice, and Hecuba’s so, so glad that she fought through years of red tape to get to her happily ever after.

\---

A few weeks later, once her house has been sold and the guests have left and everything's tricked back into a sense of normalcy, Hecuba and Ris finally get the chance to go through the wedding gifts. They all belong to Hecuba and Oskar, of course - but it's important for the clan matriarchs to do, just in case the marriage breaks up, so each spouse is an equal received in the wealth.

Overall, it's pretty standard. Some money, some jewels, some curtain and bedspread set. Hecuba and Ris smile and gossip over it, and when Ris calls her “Hecy” instead of “Matriarch Roughridge” it makes her feel all warm inside.

In the end, there's one gift that's addressed to Hecuba and Hecuba alone. Ris busies herself with the wrappings, leaving her to open it.

She does, with some worry. Who would send something just for her?

Inside the box is exactly one thing - a pearl necklace. It makes Hecuba gasp, because she recognizes it.

It's the exact same necklace that she gave to Ava and Baern on their wedding day decades ago.

She tries to calm her frantic breathing. It might not be - but she trails her fingers over it and - it is. Hecuba works every day diving for pearls. She knows them like the back of her hand, and she _knows_ this necklace.

This necklace is from _Ava_.

Hecy’s smile turns into a huge grin when she lifts the necklace. Underneath it, on a tiny scrap of paper, is a stone of farspeech frequency.

She's married and now Ava’s back in touch with her and, and - Hecuba’s riding on a high, and never wants to come down.

\---

_v._

Life with Oskar is... nice. He's not pushy, doesn't expect her to quit her job or make dinner every night. He does the laundry without being asked.

Hecuba knows that she should be grateful. She could've ended up with Flint who stammered or Thodur who wouldn't look her in the eye.

And she _is_ grateful, really. She's grateful that she has somebody to talk to, somebody to touch. Somebody to let her know she's not alone.

But even so, Hecuba can't help but long for something _more_.

She doesn't act on it. She picked a course, and _dammit_ if she won't see it through. Hecuba's good at a lot of things, but she _excels_ in _staying._

\---

Early one morning, before the Suns risen, Hecuba is woken by the buzz of her stone of farspeech. She sits up, fumbling for it.

“You okay?” murmurs Oskar, words muffled with sleep.

“Uh-huh,” she replies, finally locating the stone in the tangle of bedsheets.

“Hello?” She says into it, standing up and moving to the next room.  

“Hi Hecy,” says Artin, sounding giddy, like bubbles underwater.

“It's-” she glances at the clock in their kitchen- “two in the morning, what's going on?”

“Hey there,” says another voice, speaking extremely quickly.

“Wait... “ Hecuba says, trying to think through her exhaustion. “ _Samma?”_

“Yeah,” she replies. “We need another witness, can you come to the courthouse? Like, now?”

Hecy pulls on a shawl. “What in the _planar system_ is going on?” she hisses.

Artin laughs again. “We’re eloping!”

“Wait, _what_??!”

\---

Hecuba is one of two witnesses for Samma and Artin’s early-morning marriage. The other is a drunk they picked up off the streets, who's willing to sign the paper for a gp. Honestly, Hecuba’s in shock.

“It's really your fault, you know,” says Artin, _beaming_ , as she clings to her wife. “The bouquet and all.”

“Yeah,” Hecy says, well aware that she's third-wheeling their honeymoon-slash-elopement. “How'd you even get together, anyway?”

“Well, there's not much to do in this town-”

“And one thing led to another-”

“And we had to work really closely together for _your_ wedding-”

“And here we are!”

With that exclamation, Samma cups Artin’s chin in her palm, and they meet in a kiss.

Hecuba, absolutely unsure of how one is supposed to react in such a situation, stands there awkwardly, repositioning her arms.

“Do you know where you're going now?” Hecy asks when they separate, and continue walking towards the edge of Clamshell Coast.

“We’re gonna head to Phandalin,” replies Samma. “We can't go back to Neverwinter, and neither of us wants to stay here.”

“You better come back to visit,” she says through choked-back tears.

“We will,” Artin promises. “Of course we will.”

Hecuba gathers both of them up in a hug. She's so happy for them, so, so happy... yet the whole moment is painted purple and bittersweet.

She's losing two of her best friends to their own love story. She couldn't be happier for them. She couldn't feel worse for herself.

\---

Oskar asks where she went. Hecy thinks about telling the truth, but then she thinks about Ris’s shrewd eyes and how a clan as big as the Northfins needs money to keep things up. She thinks about how Artin ran from a wealthy home and a suitor- and knows that there's prize money on her return.

She mumbles something about a work emergency, changes into her wetsuit, and hurries off to the pearl farm before he can ask why her hair isn't wet.

\---

Her mother dies when Hecuba is ninety-eight and her mother is two hundred and forty. They hadn't spoken in months when a quick and dirty sickness stole her away.

Hecuba cries at her mother's grave, Oskar at her side, one arm around her in comfort. She sobs, and stares down at the quiet earth, and thinks about how much she hated her mother in life and how much she misses her now. She thinks about how she is the only remaining Roughridge.

If she dies, the clan dies with her.

\---

Hecuba calls Ava’s frequency the day after her one hundredth birthday. It rings, and rings, and rings. After a minute that feels like a thousand years, the stone beeps, and a pre recorded voice says, “At the tone, please record your message.”

Beep.

“Hey,” Hecy begins. “Hey, uh, Ava. It's Hecy. I got your present... thank you. Regifting, huh?” she laughs a little. “Kidding. I've missed you, y’know. Did you hear? Artin eloped with Samma. They're off in Phandalin. I hear from them every now and then- Ava, they're so in love. I hope you and Baern are, too. Anyway, I just... it's kinda lonely out here. I miss you. Please...please call me back, or let me know you're still okay, and--”

Beep.

Hecuba breathes in, deep, like she's filling up her lungs from the bottom up. Just like she does when she goes diving. And, bit by bit, she releases the breath to the ocean sky.

People move on, she tells herself. Ava’s gone. Get over it.

\---

“What do you think about having a child?” Hecuba asks Oskar later that year, when the ocean’s grown colder and ravens flock overhead. Perhaps it's because she fills so alone, that she wants something else to fill up that empty hole.

“I...I’d love that,” says Oskar, face breaking into a smile. “I don't want to pressure you, Cuba, are you sure?”

She thinks about Artin telling her to take a stand; about her three best friends, each claiming love in their own way.

“Yes,” she says to the wonderful husband who Hecuba tries so hard to love. “Yes, I'm sure.”

\---

She doesn't think it's supposed to take this long. It's been years since she and Oskar started trying for a child. Hecuba is only a hundred and twelve - she should be able to have kids for the next few decades. But still, nothing's happening, and she doesn't even have a mother anymore to ask.

In the end, she goes to Ris - not as Matriarch Roughridge, but as Hecy.  

“Please,” she begs. “We’re trying for a child, but it's not _working_...”

“Don't worry,” says Ris, smiling, and tells her what potion to make and how to brew it.

Hecuba follows her instructions. She dives for the plants and creatures herself, all the way to the sea floor. It takes her four trips, and the last one makes her nose bleed and her ears ring but her hands are full of the soft kelp that she needs.

It's worth it.

It will build both clans - the child will choose their main clan when they come of age. But more importantly, Hecy hopes, it will fill up her longing to love something.

She's surrounded by people and she still feels so, so alone.

\---

Hecuba is one hundred and thirty four when she gets pregnant. She screams in the bathroom, and Oskar rushes to her side. When she explains, they scream and cry together, pulling each other close.

Hecuba goes in to Hitower with her resignation form, and the promise that she'll be back once her child is born. The old dwarf, whose employee she has been for over a century, seems to soften. He hands her maternity leave and a bonus and tells her to call him when the baby’s born.

She tells the other divers - well, the ones who aren't retired, Denn and Sarey and Jojo. They squeal in excitement and congratulate her and make sure she has their stone of farspeech frequencies.

Hecuba calls Artin and Samma, too. They're full of excitement, and promise to come in for the birth.

She tells her mother's gravestone in halted words.

In the end, though, the hardest person to tell is Ava.

“I'm pregnant,” she says after the beep on the frequency that Ava gave her but never answers to. “I'll give birth in December. I... I'd like you to be there, if you can... gods, Ava, it's been over a century since I saw you. I hope you're okay. All the best to you and Baern, and I hope-”

Beep.

\---

Samma and Artin arrive in Clamshell Coast one day before Hecuba’s due date. They bring gifts for the baby and relief for a worried Oskar and comfort to Hecy.

Early the next morning, before the sun has risen, and the sky looks like the ocean deep deep down, Hecuba gives birth to a baby girl. She names her Mavis, and smiles to split the world.

Oskar is by her side the whole time. He hugs his wife and daughter tight, and looks at them with amazement, as though he's never seen anything so wonderful.

In that moment, holding her daughter and husband, Hecuba finds herself content. This, she thinks, is what love feels like. This, she thinks, is joy.

\---

Mavis is a beautiful child. She crawls when she's supposed to and walks at a normal time. Her first word is “mama,” and Hecuba swears she's never been happier.

She stays on maternity leave, and braids Mavis’s wisps of hair, and feeds her and teaches her to swim. It's not something Hecy ever thought she wanted... but she's finding that often, the things you look for never happen, and the best things are the things you fight for.

Hecuba looks down into Mavis’s bright brown eyes, and promises to herself that she will fight for her daughter and never stop fighting.

\---

Rumors infiltrate Clamshell Coast like rats in the night, like thieves fleeing justice. One morning, the talk of the town is the pearl harvest and the southern my winds - the next day, all anybody can talk about is the wars across Faerun.

Hecuba's naturally curious about them, as she pushes Mavis in her stroller to the park. It's not every day that you hear about items that turn cities to glass. Indeed, it's not something she's ever heard of.

At first, she brushes it off as nothing more than a rumor. But then the reports start coming in - a western town, turned to peppermint candy. Armos, overrun by an army then sunk beneath the sea. A dozen other cities reduced to black glass and dust.

It's a natural precaution, then, that she takes. Hecuba does not send Mavis to preschool so she can return to pearl diving. Instead, she stays close to her daughter. Her twin hand axes are always within reach.

Hecy pulls out her old pink-tinted glasses and teaches Mavis to read when she is two because it's easier to explain letter sounds than why the world has turned bleak and cold.

\---

“They're gathering an army,” Oskar tells her one night as they put Mavis to bed. “They're going to send the city guard, too.”

Hecuba looks at him with raw fear coursing through her. “Where?”

He dips his head. “The Moonshae Isles.”

“But that's...” Dangerous. Far. Unsafe.

“I know.”

Hecuba and Oskar have an arranged marriage, but love - in some form or another - has always been present. And now that it is time for him to go, Hecy clings to him that much tighter.

“Be safe,” she whispers. “Make it home to us.”

“I will,” Oskar promises, and kisses his wife and his daughter goodbye.

\---

Oskar goes, and does not come back. But it's okay, because Hecuba has Mavis and her friends and herself. It's okay, because she can trade in the jewelry in the bank for money for food. It's okay, because her daughter is safe.

But then Oskar _keeps_ not coming back, and one morning when she dares venture outside with three-year old Mavis in tow, she hears rumors about how the Gaia Sash destroyed the Moonshae Isles. They drowned in three minutes, the townsfolk say.

Hecy doesn't react. _Can't._

But once she's home and Mavis is down for her nap, Hecuba sits down at the kitchen table and puts her head in her hands.

The world has turned itself upside down. Oskar is dead. Hecuba and Mavis are safe, for now.

Ava won't answer and Samma and Artin are far away in Phandalin; her mother is dead and probably the safest out of all of them.

Oskar - kind, gentle Oskar - is gone. Hecy lets herself cry for him. But then, she stands up. She needs to be strong, she tells herself.

Her reflection in the window is anything but.

\---

Somehow, Hecuba finds herself and Mavis seated next to Ris at a funeral ceremony with no body. There's no words to be said, not really. All that she can think is that _the stupid sash wasn't even worth it_.

She doesn't say that. Instead, Hecuba holds her daughter tight, and doesn't let go.

They muddle through the next weeks and months, until finally, things change.

\---

There's an extra pair of work boots in the closet, and clothes that don't fit Hecuba or Mavis in the wardrobe. That's weird, she thinks, but they're probably just a friends. Come to think of things that are weird - it's strange, isn't it, that Mavis isn't enrolled in school? She can read and all.

Hecuba shrugs. She must just be an overprotective mother. Even so, she goes out that morning and signs her daughter up at the school building.

She goes inside with Mavis, the only two members of the Roughridge clan. She doesn't make her go in alone.

Hecuba waves her goodbye and hopes that she'll make a good friend like - like - like Jeremy, yes, that was it.

When she gets home later that morning, Hecuba’s mildly surprised to find a note in her calendar reminding her of a meeting with Hitower. Well, she's a single mother. She can't be faulted for forgetting a few things now and then.

\---

“Ah, Hecuba,” says her boss. “I'm glad you could make it.”

“No problem,” she says, shaking his hand and glancing at the two other people in the room - a male dwarf about her age, with flowers in his beard, and a young human woman with dark skin and white hair.

“I'll admit,” he continues. “I'm excited to have you back onboard the company. But, more than that, Hecuba, I speak to you as a patriarch does to a matriarch. This is my nephew twice removed.”

“Merle Hitower Highchurch,” supplies the human woman carefully.

 _Oh_. Hecuba knows how marriage negotiations work, because she can remember the disastrous one with the Ebbtides. It's the only one she can remember.

She leans back in her chair a little, and examines Merle. His eyes are hazel, sharp, and his smile makes her smile, too.

Yes, Hecuba thinks. He could be a good husband and father.

\---

The sky is bright when they marry. Neither of them really have any family there, but that's okay. Hitower shows up, and so does the human woman. Mavis is the most adorable flower girl, and Hecuba thinks about her daughter the whole time.

\---

She supposed that she's still used to being a single mom, because for all that they enjoy each other's company, Hecuba and Merle don't really mesh. She's strict where he is lax, he laughs when she scolds. She tells him he needs to be a better example for Mavis.

He says that Mavis needs to learn to have fun, too.

But it's okay. It's an arranged marriage, and those never have love in them.

\---

“What do you think about having another child?” Hecuba asks him one evening because that's her duty as part of the marriage.

“That... I think I'd like that,” Merle finally says.

She takes it as a yes, and dives for ingredients to make a potion to help it happen. If Hecuba can't remember who taught her how to make it, so what?

She's stressed. She forgets lots of things.

\---

Mookie is born in the afternoon. Once again, Samma and Artin are there to help Hecuba.

She tries to not be resentful that Merle is at a church meeting he's leading rather than at her side.

When Mavis gets home from school, she coos over the baby and rocks him in her arms. When Merle gets home from work, he bounces the baby until Hecuba, nervous, snatches him away.

\---

There's a rare morning reprieve when Mookie is asleep and the house is mostly clean and Hecuba can finally sit down. She pulls out her stone of farspeech, for want of anything else to occupy her hands.

Tick by tick, she scrolls through her contracts. Denn. Hitower. Merle. Sarey. Jojo. Artin, Samma. And... one weird frequency that she can't read, as though it’s been staticked out.

Weird.

Hecuba deletes it with a slight shake of her head, and rises with a sigh as Mookie begins to wail.

\---

One afternoon, Hecuba and Merle argue. It's nothing new, but it's also everything new.

She shouts, “I don't even know why you thought you could be a father!”

And he replies, “well, me neither.”

And then Merle is gone, leaving Hecuba alone with eight-year-old Mavis and four-year old Mookie.

\---

She takes the lonely hole inside of her heart and turns it away from her. Hecuba doesn't need happiness, but her kids do.

Her kids sure do.

\---

One day, Hitower dies. To Hecy’s great surprise, she of all people is appointed his successor.

“But why _me_?” she asks Denn one of the first afternoons, where her new office feels too big and scary.

They're on the verge of retirement, but their eyes are young when they look at her. “You're the only one working here who's done the office work and the diving,” they say, like it's obvious. “You deserve this, Hecuba. We're proud of you.”

She nods, and takes the office, and sets about teaching her divers how to do it from the dock; how to steal a deep breath and stay underwater for ten minutes at a time.

“Where’d you _learn_ this?” asks Jojo, grinning with exhilaration as he finally perfects a standing dive. “Hitower didn't exactly teach this!”

Hecuba remembers Furniss standing on a rowboat, and a competition in Neverwinter, and chemicals stinging her eyes. “Oh, you know,” she replies. “In another life.”

\---

“Why don't we have another parent?” Mavis asks. She's peering up at her mother, eyes owl-like through her spectacles.

“You did,” Hecuba tells her. “His name... his name is Merle.”

“Where ish ‘e?” asks Mookie. They're in the middle of dinner, and he's bouncing up and down on his chair as she tries to get him to eat his vegetables.

“I don't know,” Hecuba replies sharply.

She knows she was too sharp when Mookie quiets down and Mavis ducks her head, picking at her meal.

That night, Hecuba cries alone in her bed. She’d hated her mother for the same things she's doing to her children.

Hecuba wakes up at three in the morning when Mookie can't sleep. She holds him close, hums an old lullaby. This was never the life she wanted, but it's the only one she's got.

And even if she can't be happy - dammit, her kids will be.

\---

One day, the little Roughridge family receives a letter in the mail.  While that’s not exactly surprising, the sender of the letter is. Merle Highchurch.

Hecuba reads the letter quietly, to herself, and then reads it aloud to her children.  “Hello, everyone,” she reads, trying to keep the acid out of her tone. “I’m sorry it’s been so long.  I hope you’re all doing well. Mavis, darling, remember that it’s okay to have fun. Mookie, be good for you mom, okay?”

She doesn’t read the last part out loud.  “Hecuba - I’m sorry I was such a shitty husband.  I’ve been thinking about it, for a while. You gotta choose joy, y’know?  But I’m sorry. I’ve got a steady job, now, and I’ll be sending child support.”

Hecuba’s never heard of _child support_ , can’t believe that he has the _audacity_ to disappear and turn up four years later in a letter saying _sorry_.  But she still takes the few hundred gold pieces in the envelope and puts them in the bank.

Really, she couldn’t care less what he’s doing to earn a small fortune.  Really, she tells herself that she hates him. Hates that he got to run and escape and “choose joy,” while she’s stuck in Clamshell Coast with two children and a management position and nothing joyful whatsoever.

She swallows her bitterness, and gets the kids off to school.  They’re training a new diver at work today, and Hecy wants to train them herself.  She’s doing her best to be better than Hitower ever was, and that means being out and about with her divers.

\---

Hecy’s doing her best.  She really is, even though she knows she’s a harsh mom and that her kids probably hate her and she wishes, sometimes, she could copy Merle and run off after her own joy.

But she doesn’t.  Instead, Hecuba does what she does best - Hecuba stays.

\---

She goes through her stone of farspeech contacts one day when putting in the new neighbor’s frequency.  It’s funny - this old model must be really glitching, because not one but _two_ frequencies are staticked out.  She’s got all the names she can remember having - Denn, Sarey, Jojo, Hitower, Merle, Glymeth the new neighbor - and the weird staticky frequencies.  Hecuba shrugs and deletes them with a tap of her fingers.

Then she turns back to Glymeth.  He’s shorter than her, with a quiet smile.  “So where are you from?” she asks.

“Up by Bottlenose Cove,” he replies.  “The Coralheart clan’s been there for ages, but I thought I might as well see some of Faerun.  Couldn’t bear to leave behind the ocean, though.”

Hecy nods and laughs and invites him to dinner with her and her kids the next day.  He’s a nice guy.

\---

It takes Hecuba time.  Slowly, surely, the hole that Merle ripped apart begins to heal.  She doesn’t hate him quite so much for running away. She likes to think that she’s becoming a better parent.

And maybe that’s why she sends Mavis and Mookie on the ferry - because after what happened on the Rockport Limited, she doesn’t trust the train - to Neverwinter to meet him.  Mavis is nervous, and Hecuba understands that.

“He’s just as nervous as you are,” she tells her daughter.  “Besides, you’ve got your handaxes, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you’ll be just fine.”  Hecy pulls her into a hug. “You’ll keep an eye on Mookie for me?”

“Mama!” shouts Mookie just then, racing into the kitchen with dirt streaked all over his face. “I ‘et a worm!”

Mavis laughs a little.  “Well, I’ll do my best.”

“That’s all we can do.”

Hecuba walks her kids to the dock, and makes sure they’re safely on their ferry.  Mavis waves at her from their seats. Mookie waves at her from the front of the boat, jumping up and down.  She laughs, and smiles, and goes to work.

As she sits down to help shuck a pile of oysters - boss status be damned - Hecy can see her reflection in the bucket of water they’re in.  She is one hundred and fifty-four, and she looks it. There’s a few wrinkles on her face, a few gray hairs in her carefully braided beard.

But there’s something else there, too.  There’s a new surety in her eyes, a new confidence in the way she holds herself.  This, Hecuba thinks, is a woman who could be called strong.

She runs the word over in her mind.  Hecy - not pretty, not destined for greatness, but _strong_.

Yes, she thinks.  Yes, she could get used to that.

\---

Later that year, Hecuba and Mavis and Mookie take a vacation.  They go by battlewagon, because she still doesn’t trust trains, even though Mavis assures her that what happened to the Rockport Limited was statistically improbable, and Mookie really wants to ride one.

They’re pulling up to the shining streets of Goldcliff when Hecuba realizes that she hasn’t taken a vacation since she went to - to _someone’s_ wedding in Neverwinter, nevermind who - and she’s certainly never taken one with her children.

As soon as they’re in the city, Mookie presses his face up against the window, and even Mavis can’t hide her excitement.  They both stare into the crowded streets, awed by the sheer height of the buildings, the throngs of people of every race.

Hecuba smiles.  It reminds her of her first trip to Neverwinter, back when seeing an elf or an aarakocra was amazing.

\---

They are four days into their visit, and the three of them are walking down one of Goldcliff’s broad avenues, headed to a cute restaurant Hecuba heard about from the hotels’ receptionist for dinner.  She’s holding Mookie’s hand - he’s prone to running into the street - and Mavis is walking next to her, talking delightedly about the latest Caleb Cleveland novel.

Hecuba can’t remember the last thing Mavis said when the screaming starts.  Behind them, people are shouting, and the one word she can make out over the din is, “Run!  Run!”

And, in the background, “Bank!  To the bank!”

She doesn't hesitate.  Hecuba grabs Mookie’s hand tighter and reaches for Mavis’s, pulls them through the streets that were once crowded and have now turned into a running mob.

She curses her short dwarven legs as she hoists Mookie up on her hip.  The bank, shining and golden, is right in front of them. Hecy turns, grabbing for Mavis - but she’s nowhere to be found, and her hand grasps empty air - and there’s a big half-orc behind her pushing her forwards towards the bank, towards the bank, away from where her daughter was.

Hecuba screams, claws at the officer who’s pushing her backwards.  “No, please,” she begs, clinging to Mookie, “my daughter, you have to let me out, _please_ \--”

“Sorry, ma’am,” the officer says, peering out of the mirrored doors to the bank that they’re dragging closed.  “I don’t see her.”

“Let me out, dammit, _please_ \--”

The doors shut with a resounding boom.

\---

Reflected on them she can see her frantic face, clutching Mookie to her side.  As invisible attackers barrage the world around them, she holds him tight, stares helpless at the doors, and prays for her daughter.  

Across the foyer, the officers are forcibly restraining an elf trying to break out a window to get to his husband.  Hecuba shudders a little, swipes at her frantic tears. And although ever iota in her body is screaming for her to _run_ to _go_ to _find Mavis_ , she knows that she cannot.

Hecuba holds tight onto Mookie and does what she does best.  Hecuba stays.

\---

She breathes in deep, filling up her lungs from the bottom up like she's about to dive. And as she releases the air - slowly, surely - a blue light flashes through the crowded bank.

And Hecuba hears a story.

So many things are explained - Merle, and Samma and Artin and the destruction of Phandalin, and Ava must've been killed by a relic and, and _Oskar_ \- but oh gods, no, Mavis is _out there with the Hunger_ -

And then Hecuba hears a song.  


 

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Hamlet: "Who is Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her?"  
> We read this in my lit class, and the concept refused to let go!


End file.
